Between 4-20th of May, four members of our fly larvae composting team (Cecilia Lalander, Evgheni Ermolaev, Giulio Zorzetto and Viktoria Wiklicky) left their natural habitat in Sweden (desks and greenhouse) and traded it for a temporary new home a bit further east: China.
Their first stop was Fuyang, a city considered “small” by Chinese standards, located in the northwestern Anhui province. For a week, the fly larvae composting team helped a local pig farmer to set up a soldier fly composting system to manage the waste of around 300 pigs and piglets on-site.
Photo: Viktoria Wiklicky, Evgheni Ermolaev
Despite the tight schedule, the team managed to set up a nursery for the black soldier fly hatchlings and a preliminary system to treat the fresh pig manure.
Photo: Evgheni Ermolaev
Although the team was challenged by the local, highly abundant house fly population, they successfully managed to kick off a black soldier fly larvae composting system with eggs obtained from a local black soldier fly producer.
Photo: Evgheni Ermolaev
The take home message of the team was that it is possible to set up a fly larvae composting system from scratch, if a suitable location is provided (housing, ventilation, local aid (language barriers), possibility to shop for equipment). Furthermore the fly composting team was invited to present the fly larvae composting system at the Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Breeding Pig and in a meeting with the local management team they discussed further collaborations regarding fly larvae composting as a more sustainable way to manage pig manure from local pig producers in different Chinese provinces.
From 15-18th of May, the SLU team attended the second international conference of Insects to Feed the World (IFW) in Wuhan (http://ifw2018.csp.escience.cn/dct/page/1). More than 270 participants from 40 countries attended, 104 presentations were held and 61 posters presented. Roughly 50% of the presented material was directly or indirectly connected to the black soldier fly. Our team had plenty of opportunities to exchange knowledge and widen their network. Take home message of the conference was that, in the black soldier fly business, collaboration of any kind -whether in breeding, waste management or producing insect protein – is crucial for the further development of this sector. There are still many questions unanswered and together with other collaborators we could manage to tackle the challenges that will occur in the roll out of black soldier fly treatment technology.
谢谢中国 (Xièxiè Zhōngguó)
Contact
Cecilia Lalander